was also, unfortunately, head of the club’s rules committee. The affair had resulted in the couple’s messy divorce. It was the memory of Wheeler’s late father that so far had stayed the ax, but this time it looked like expulsion from the club was inevitable.
Wheeler Sr., an investment broker and portfolio analyst who had made it big, eventually opening his own brokerage firm, had died last year, taking with him Wheeler Jr.’s sole reason for being. There was something exhilarating about being the bad seed of a domineering, humorless father that lost its thrill when Dear Ol’ Dad hit Boot Hill. Now all of Wheeler’s pranks seemed more desperate than funny. His father’s anger had always been the rimshot that saved the joke.
Wheeler started drinking more after his father died and now, in the morning when he got up, his head was as dull as racial humor, eyes were filled with grain, and his stomach was always on the edge of revolt. He was approaching middle age, and apart from three years at USC and another two in the marines, he’d never accomplished anything.
He’d only joined the marine corps to fend off his father’s threat that he would lose his inheritance for being chucked out of college. Then, just when it looked like he’d straightened out, being accepted for Elite Special Forces training, he’d been dishonorably discharged from his unit for fornicating with his commanding officer’s wife. Since then, he had never finished anything except hundreds upon hundreds of bottles of blended scotch. He’d read once about an old eccentric in the desert who had built a house out of empty beer bottles. If Wheeler had any architectural ambition, his empties could have built a small city.
It was twelve-thirty and Wheeler’s hands were beginning to tremble. It was still a little early, but he moved down the narrow hallway toward the grill and his first shooter of the day. On the way he passed framed pictures of club pros and famous golfing celebrities who had achieved recognition or glory on the WCC links. As he walked he glanced through the glass doors of the private dining room that catered lunches for members and saw his younger brother, Prescott, gathered with five or six businessmen. All of them had yellow pads in front of them, their finished meals pushed off to the side, making notes while Pres lectured. Pres’s secretary, Angie Wong, spotted Wheeler, tapped Prescott’s shoulder and whispered. Pres glanced up. His narrow face and intense expression darkened at the sight of his brother. His shook his head slightly as if to say, Don’t come in.
Geez, Pres, I’m not a typhoid carrier, Wheeler thought. But he was ashamed of his younger brother’s reaction to him. Wheeler knew he’d been an embarrassment to his dead father. He knew his mother was long ago tired of making excuses for him, and now Pres seemed afraid his older brother might stumble in, vomit on the table and ruin his business meeting. Before moving on, Wheeler waved at his brother and smiled an apology through the glass door. Then, unexpectedly, Prescott’s face softened and, for a moment, Wheeler saw on his brother’s narrow features the same look of awe Pres had always given him during their childhood… a look of envy and respect that Wheeler hadn’t seen in almost sixteen years.
Back then, Pres had thought his big brother could do anything. Wheeler had been Pres’s God, his idol. It was a time when, if Wheeler had told his little brother to run through fire and jump off the Santa Monica cliffs, Pres would have ended up on the beach with his hair burning. Now things were different. Wheeler was a gravy stain on Pres’s huge success. Prescott Cassidy was the family superstar now. At thirty-four, he was arguably among the most important lawyers in Los Angeles. One of the biggest names in the local political spectrum and a huge Democratic party fund-raiser and power broker, Prescott handled legal problems and political deals, while Wheeler honked down shooters in the WCC grill. Oh, well, shit happens.
That look of envy that Wheeler thought he saw on his brother’s face must have been a weird reflection in the glass or bad lighting. Even still, it made him stop… made him wonder why things had turned out this way.
He was eating alone in the beautiful dining room that overlooked the third fairway when Pres and Angie Wong walked out of the club. Angie was a small, thin, Chinese